


Wrong and Yet So Very Right

by Ramzes



Series: Night So Dark and Star So Pale [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: AU - the rebels lost at the Trident, F/M, Multi, Twisted Romance, no politics, not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 14:06:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12728016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: What an elegant way to teach him his place! He might be the man who warmed her bed but someone worthy to discuss the replacement of her fallen uncle with? For this, he was the very last one.





	Wrong and Yet So Very Right

He thought nothing could be more disgusting than their first time together. It turned out that the second time was even worse.  She seemed oblivious to the very clear way her body did not agree with her mind. “What?” she asked when he drew back, and tried to pull him back.

 “You…” he started. “Why are you doing this? It isn’t even something that you desire.”

 “Oh yes, it is.”

 “Nonsense.”  In the silence that descended, he stared at her in disbelief. He might have been prevented from bedding a woman for years due to his oaths but he could still tell when one did not respond to his attentions. Attentions? He wished! He reached out to stroke her cheek and she hissed like an angry cat. He had the feeling that if he tried to touch her breast, she’d literally spit at him.

 “Why are you doing this?” he asked again. “I just want to make it good for you. Surely you can’t doubt that this is a good thing?”

 “I don’t want it to be good for me,” she snapped. “Or do you think your precious prince took this care when he last visited my bed, the night we conceived Aegon? Oh yes, he tried but do you know the only thing that would have made it bearable? For him to leave me alone. Of course, he didn’t do me this courtesy. Don’t tell me that you want to outdo him?”

  _She’s mad_ , Arthur finally realized. Not mad like Aerys, not at all. _She’s consumed by hatred and since she can’t take it out on Rhaegar, she makes me pay for him as well._ She wanted him to bed her in a last spurt of malice towards someone who could no longer see it, and she did not care if this was nice because physical pain might distract her from the one in her heart… and also because she was smart enough to know that this would be the best revenge she could inflict on him. To have him not out of love or lust but revenge alone. And she knew him well. She knew that her discomfort mattered to him and she was ready to put up with it, as he had put up with standing guard for Rhaegar as he had been busy about the enterprise of betraying her. It sickened him to think of the things she was ready to put herself through to twist his heart’s desire into his greatest horror but at the same time, the same dark contentment from the night she had first summoned him rose to the surface. For her to hate him so much, she must have loved him very much… or so he hoped. He had been well acquainted with girls when he had been a boy; now, as a man, he knew so little about women in the matters of heart.

 And still, as time passed, he could feel the change in her that she suppressed when she was aware of it. Arms twined about him in a hug as they lay together and not nails drawing blood in ecstasy when her body wanted him as much as her mind wanted revenge. Four limbs holding him close to her in the aftermath, as if she was unwilling to let him go. A face buried in the tunic that he had haphazardly thrown on the bed, not far from her pillow, as he put on his other garments. But as soon as she realized what she was doing, she would stop it and adopt the cold indifference that was her shield for the world and him, most of all. Arthur no longer cared. The small moments that became more and more frequent let him know that the intensity of her hatred was fading – or perhaps her love was returning, against her will. But he could not ask her. Not that they talked this much. Certainly not about anything important.

 “Who is to take the last position at the Kingsguard?” he asked one night and she immediately lifted her head from his shoulder and drew back in the vast bed.

 “When I inform Ser Gerold, I’m sure he’s going to let all of you know,” she said. What an elegant way to teach him his place! He might be the man who warmed her bed but someone worthy to discuss the replacement of her fallen uncle with? For this, he was the very last one.

 “Not one of the rebels?” he insisted. Surely her hatred for Rhaegar could not go this far?

 She went rigid, he felt it even through the few inches separating them. “I am not taking risks with my children’s lives,” she said coldly. “Revenge isn’t worth this much.”

  _Or perhaps Rhaegar wasn’t?_ he wondered. But the Prince’s name was forbidden between them, unless something had upset her greatly in the day that had passed.

 “Were you truly not improved when Aegon was conceived?” Arthur asked about a month after their first night together, when the flame of her thrust for punishment had gone down a little – enough to let her show her discomfort with certain poses and actions. He did not want to think of it as pain.

 She chuckled darkly. “No, I made it up to torture you,” she drawled. “Of course I was not improved! Do you think that while I fought to walk unassisted for more than five minutes, I was blooming in _these_ parts?” She paused. “But he never came to me again,” she added, honestly. “Except for Harrenhall,” she amended and smiled ruefully at his look of horror. “Oh, it was not as if he forced himself on me this time,” she said. “I set him right that this was not the way. He wanted to make up for the insult. He thought he was doing me a favour, giving me something a lewd Dornishwoman would accept gladly. And besides, this way he could be sure I wouldn’t find anyone else in misguided retaliation. I could even endanger the child, he said.”

 Arthur had no doubt that these had been Rhaegar’s exact words. So proud of his learning, so quick to pass judgment on those who did not have the certainty of his convictions. And Elia was from Dorne, after all. _But so am I_ , he thought as Elia turned her back on him, the way she always did when certain topics upset the precarious balance of their silent complicity, the revenge and the unwitting sweetness. _He is dead, and his talents and failures died with him, but I’m here. I will save you from yourself, Elia Martell. I will save you, so I can have you._

 But he did not know the way.

 

* * *

 

 

**The End**


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